Bracks, Carr discuss population growth

Joining Lateline, as part its special report on the nation's population growth, are two former state premiers Bob Carr and Steve Bracks.

Transcript

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LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: Joining me from Hong Kong is the former NSW Premier Bob Carr and from Melbourne is the former Victorian Premier Steve Bracks.

Welcome to both of you.

STEVE BRACKS, FORMER VICTORIAN PREMIER: Thank you, Leigh.

BOB CARR, FORMER NSW PREMIER: Pleasure to be with you.

LEIGH SALES: The Treasury Secretary Ken Henry recently said that population growth would challenge Australia like nothing since Federation. Bob Carr, is it of that order?

BOB CARR: I believe it is, but appreciate where I'm coming from. I think the explosion in human numbers is wrecking the planet. That's my starting point. The world population has doubled since 1970. We've gone from 3.5 to 6.5 billion people crowded onto this planet, and we're going to reach nine billion by the middle of this century. And I think Australians have got an opportunity to say,"We're going to protect our great natural systems and protect a decent life." And we're not going to do that by force feeding population growth onto this tired, old continent of ours.

LEIGH SALES: Steve Bracks, that point that Mr Carr raises that the explosion in human numbers is wrecking the planet; what's your take on that?

STEVE BRACKS: Well, I don't think we can afford to be isolationist on this, Leigh. I understand Bob's point, but the reality is that a challenge is an opportunity as well. And if you think of the challenge that we had post the Second World War where we had a population of around eight million in Australia, and there was a great political consensus that we needed to increase our population to somewhere around 20 million and we have. Well, I think we need the same consensus again. We can't close our borders. We can't say to the rest of the world, "Whatever happens there is not going to happen in Australia." We will have population increase. Our responsibility as legislators, our responsibility in business and industry, and as a community, is to make sure we provide for that increasing population, and there will be opportunities there. Greater density will mean that certain public options become viable; better public transport's viable. We have to look for sources of renewable water and water which is augmenting the rainfall water as well. So there's all sorts of ways that we can deal with this. But closing our minds and our hearts to people from around the world is not the way that's going to do that.

LEIGH SALES: Well, Bob Carr, Steve Bracks says there's all sorts of ways we can deal with it. Are you optimistic that good planning could help address some of these challenges?

BOB CARR: Well, the first point I'd make in response to Steve's comment is that there's no argument that we're going to have population growth. There's no argument that we're going to have a strong, robust immigration policy. It is the rate of immigration that is now the issue that faces us. We were headed for a population of 28.5 billion by 2050. We now know that because of a very significant ramping up of the immigration intake, really a doubling of the intake, over the last five years, that we're looking at a population of 35 million by the - sorry, by 42.5 million by 2055. And I am very worried about that. I don't think we've got the carrying capacity. I think our cities can cope, I think there are robust plans in place in Sydney and Melbourne. Higher densities and urban sprawl will be part of it though; that's unavoidable. And I think Australians oughta being appreciating that the argument over the quality of our urban life begins with the rate of population increase, the rate of immigration.

LEIGH SALES: Well, Steve Bracks, in terms of the way that we deal with it, do we keep expanding the boundaries of Sydney and Melbourne, do we increase density inside existing boundaries? What is a Sydney or Melbourne in 50 years going to look like?

STEVE BRACKS: Oh, look, there's no doubt that we have to pursue better density in our cities. We have some of the biggest sprawls in our cities, in our capital cities - Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, even Perth to some extent - of any cities in the world. And we need to look at in-fill development around transport hubs, where we have under-utilisation of infrastructure. We can take more density in more areas. And you look at some of the new housing choices that people are making. They're voting with their feet and they're looking at coming into some of the urban areas, into the cities, in higher density living with better public provision outside that. Look, I think we can do much more. But I think it's going to be good for Australia to increase our population, and I think migration is a key part of that. It will assist in our diversity and our openness to the rest of the world, and that's been proven since post the Second World War period. Secondly, it'll make things viable. I'll give you an example. You know, we've long had a Holy Grail of saying that we need better competition, and one of the busiest air routes in the world between Melbourne and Sydney; one of the best competitions we could have would be to have fast rail. It's just not economic now, but think of a greater population between the two cities. It will become economic. Urban transport in those cities will be more economic and have a better payback as we have greater density as well. We need to see these challenges as opportunities. We can't say to people, other countries, "You can take migrants and we won't."

Now of course Bob's right, and we agree on this: there will be population increase. I would say we should increase it more than he is indicating, because it's good for our economy, growth and demand underneath our economy in goods and service, and that's proved to be the case between some of the states who've pursued that and better for our society more broadly and making us more open and engaged with the rest of the world. This is a good thing.

BOB CARR: The issue is not population growth, it's not a generous immigration policy. The issue is the rate of population growth. We had a net intake a few years ago of 160,000. Now we've got something like half a million people arriving here - that includes short stay people, very often becoming long stay. That's been a very significant ramping up, and it's happened without any environmental impact statement. You've gotta have an environmental impact statement for every activity under state and federal planning law that has a significant impact on the environment. But the most significant factor shaping what happens to the Australian environment is the rate of immigration, and no EIS has been required and no public discussion has taken place about, effectively, a doubling of the intake. And this happens without any reference to the reliability of Australia's rainfall patterns. I have no idea what the people settling on these ambitious targets are basing their targets on when it comes to rainfall data. The rainfall data I'm aware of is very fragile, and every state in Australia, mainland state since 2006 has had to resort to desalination because of the pressure on rain sources of drinking water. And this is - anyone who's making assumptions about rainfall reliability over the next 20 or 30 years in Australia is on a fool's mission.

LEIGH SALES: On this point of the environmental impact Mr Carr, in a recent speech the Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner said that the primary source of stress on our urban and natural environments is bad management not population growth. Would you disagree with that?

BOB CARR: I strongly disagree with it. Steve and I have been involved and our successors have been involved with that awesomely difficult question of managing of the Murray-Darling Basin. And no-one can say there's a single profound solution that fixes it up for all time. There are a range of highly contested solutions. I think Sydney and Melbourne, as I said earlier, have got very good metropolitan plans. Higher density is part of them. But the fact is all of your problems are multiplied when you ramp up the increase, when you turn that lever and double the annual intake. And I'd really like federal ministers to stand side by side with state planning ministers when they've gotta fight battles to lift residential densities in rail corridors, as has been happening in Melbourne and Sydney, or to release new land on the urban fringe for housing. All these challenges are escalated once you significantly increase the intake, and it's the rate of increase we're talking about, not the fact that there will be an increase.

LEIGH SALES: Well Steve Bracks, on this point that Mr Carr raises about the coordination between state and gederal governments, you know, is there an issue with that when the federal government, say, announces a policy such as the baby bonus and then it's the state government that is largely responsible for dealing with the additional people that might generate?

STEVE BRACKS: I think Lindsay Tanner's right, and you made the point that bad management has been a feature of some of our future planning, and I think that's probably right. I think we can do much better. The reality is that we've known for some time that Australia is a destination that people want to come to. That is a challenge for legislators to provide for. Now Bob mentioned, and I agree with him on some of the points he made, but he mentioned that we can't rely on average rainfalls, which have been the averages we've used for the last 100 years. That's correct. But we need to augment our water supply systems. We're not unique on that. This is happening in most countries around the world, where they're looking at non-rainfall dependent water supplies and has been the case in a lot of countries. So we will be doing that. And we will need to look at better density and we will need to look at better public transport options. So these are challenges.

LEIGH SALES: But, Mr Bracks ...

STEVE BRACKS: But I make this point as well: I think if you're looking at what the community needs in the long term, it needs a better skill base. If we start driving down immigration levels we will drive down our economy. I can guarantee you that. We will see growth levels reduce. We will see skills shortages right across the country and we won't see the provision of modern infrastructure which is dealing with large population densities provided. I'll give you a quick example of that. If you look at in Bob's state, in NSW, during the Olympics Access Economics did a study on this, it represented about 35 per cent of Australia's economy - NSW. It's now down to about 31 per cent. That's largely to do with a small population growth stimulating demand for goods and services. And you've seen Queensland and Victoria, because of that population push, increase significantly. Now, I don't think that's a good long term formula for the country to drive down growth, and that's what will happen if we start to drive down migration levels.

LEIGH SALES: But Mr Bracks, you say that OK, we will address the issues to do with water supply, we will address the issues to do with increased density. But at the moment people living in Sydney and Melbourne in particular, and Brisbane, are already highly concerned about traffic jams, about housing affordability, about water restrictions. They feel like their existing state governments haven't delivered well enough on that. How can we have any confidence for the future that when the nation's at 35 million, that that situation's going to be any better?

STEVE BRACKS: Look, I understand that, Leigh, and I think what we're going through is a period of significant and profound change. A good illustration of that is water prices. We have used water as if there was no tomorrow. We suddenly realise there's a scarcity and we need to provide an economic base for reinvestment. That's why water prices have doubled across the country. But they've - it's happened and the public has largely accepted and supported that because it's investing in new sustainable water supplies. Well the same will have to happen in a whole range of areas. In transport, in other areas as well, we'll need to reinvest and the public will have to be a part of that. Yes, you can identify the problems because we're going through a transition. But if we somehow say that we can turn back population and we therefore don't need to invest, we are on a path for a calamity. We should recognise that our population will increase and we'll have to invest to provide for supporting that with a high quality lifestyle. That is the challenge ahead of us.

LEIGH SALES: Mr Carr, I notice you had a chuckle when Mr Bracks said we're on a path to calamity.

BOB CARR: Well the point I make is: for advocates of high immigration, and Steve of course is among the more reasonable of them, what is the limit? What is the limit? Is any limit recognised? Is it 100 million, 50 million for this land? And does it take the remotest account of Australia's carrying capacity? On one windy day, soils blow from Central Australia 1,400 kilometres away. We do not know whether the drought that is affecting such a large area of Australia at the present time is a drought that's going to recede like the Federation-era drought or a warning of long term changes in rainfall patterns. We've seen those changes in Perth, and they are very, very troubling. Steve talks about new technologies, new approaches to water management getting us through. Does that mean we have to have a desal plant on every Australian headland. I want to deal with the economic arguments. The fact is there's been serious study that shows increased immigration worsens and doesn't relieve skills shortages. You import a tradesman, a qualified tradesmen, coming here to make a contribution. He brings with him his dependents. And the studies confirm that ramping up immigration actually exacerbates skills shortages rather than relieves them. The same point has been made about the simple idea that increased immigration solves the problems associated with the ageing of the population. Bob Birrell, who's Australia's best academic expert in population policy, points out that over the long term it has the most marginal impact on age distribution and you have to run very high immigration to even have that marginal impact. High immigration produces a surge in activity associated with housing, building new shopping malls, but it produce costs, new costs for a lot of the rest of the economy. It's a very simple view of economic management to say we won't worry about increasing output per person, we're just going to ramp up overall economic activity.

LEIGH SALES: Steve Bracks, I wonder if the argument about increasing population and in support of population growth is in step with the broader public. Do you fear that there will be any sort of Pauline Hanson-style backlash to any increased immigration to Australia?

STEVE BRACKS: I think this is a significant issue and reflects on the comments that Bob made before that what is the acceptable level of population increase, and as a part of that, what is our net overseas migration intake increase. That is a key issue. We've never - not since the post-War period have we come to a clear position on that, and I think there has been a largely fear of opening up that debate, of having a definition around it and then arranging for the planning for environmental support and infrastructure support for that to happen. And I - this is where Bob and I agree - I would like to see a settlement on that issue. I would like to see much more debate and discussion about what our population increase should be.

LEIGH SALES: And do you have a number in mind?

STEVE BRACKS: And once we have that consensus - well I don't think Ken Henry is that far off. I think, you know, we are very likely to go to a population of around about 30 to 35 million. And if that's the case, let's look at what is manageable and sustainable which will assist in providing a better skill base for our country and a better growth prospect for our country and better provision of services. But let's have an agreement about that. Now, in the absence of an agreement, we have these endless debates about what the public would accept. We don't have an open and transparent description of what our overseas migration intake will be and it creeps up or it creeps down. And I think we'd be better of settling on a figure. And I would be keen to be a part of that. And in doing that, though, you actually start providing for the future; you start planning properly.

LEIGH SALES: Alright. Before you go, I can't have a former NSW Premier on the program without asking you about some of the recent events in politics in that state. Mr Carr, the Prime Minister says ...

BOB CARR: I actually wondered about that, Leigh.

LEIGH SALES: You were expecting me to bring it up earlier, I'm sure.

BOB CARR: I thought it might come up, yes.

LEIGH SALES: The Prime Minister says it's time for Labor MPs in NSW to get their act together. Is he right?

BOB CARR: I agree with him completely. I agree with him completely. I've got a very, very high opinion of Kristina Keneally. I think she's got the makings of a very, very impressive Premier. But if there is the faintest suggestion that a single Labor MLC has got influence over policy and personnel, the Government will get such a thumping at the polls they won't know what hit them. So the challenge for Kristina is to demonstrate that she truly is making decisions uninfluenced by Eddie Obeid, because the public backlash, if it's considered that he's got influence over the Government, the policies, the choices it makes, will be savage indeed. But she is a very, very competent woman, she's impressed everyone she's encountered and worked with during her time in state politics and I wish her well.

LEIGH SALES: Is State Labor in NSW electable?

BOB CARR: Yes, it is, but I think there are some things they've gotta do. I think Nathan Rees was facing up to some major challenges. I think it's gotta say, for example - this is just one example of a policy-driven approach: there'll be no more coal-fired power in NSW. That we can meet the energy requirements of the state through gas and renewables, we don't have to incinerate more coal. And that would get support because it's sound policy. I think the Government's gotta be bold enough to do that. And talking about another environmental challenge, it's gotta be bold enough to say,"The river red gums will be saved." Victoria - and this would never have happened in my day, Steve; you would have agreed - Victoria took the lead on this environmental issue from NSW by saving the River Red Gums on its side of the Murray. NSW has gotta have the big generous national parks that saves this part of the old Australian continent for all time. A policy-driven approach can see Labor under Kristina re-elected.

LEIGH SALES: We're out of time. Bob Carr and Steve Bracks, we really do appreciate your time coming in to talk to us about population. Thank you very much.